


i love him and the other one too

by teavious



Category: Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 - Malloy
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, One Shot, One-Sided Attraction, Polyamory, Polygamy, Post-Canon, Relationship Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-24
Updated: 2016-09-24
Packaged: 2018-08-17 01:02:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8124553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teavious/pseuds/teavious
Summary: Natasha is by herself a burning need, a desperate want. When she’s put in the position to choose, she wants everything she can get.





	

Dolokhov has counted the money himself; the ten thousand rubles he puts forward towards his friend’s temporary happiness. It’s easy to be swept up in Anatole’s made-up beautiful world, his lies wonderful alternatives to unkindly truths. He frowns at the realization that he let himself be led right where that vile man wanted him to be, and yet he still waits.

Yet, he still sits in his study with Anatole and two other people he doesn’t want there. Everything needed for the elopement is strewn across his desk and he imagines throwing open his window and putting everything to the wind, letting the matter drop forever. When he blinks again, Anatole has ravished his hair even more from constantly passing his hand through it, and now paces the room with his uniform unbuttoned, surprisingly coming from a man who seemed most reassured of this plan he came up with weeks in advance.

Dolokhov takes another swing of his drink, glances away from the skin that Anatole shows; asks to be left alone with his friend only. He can hear his heart beating even over all the screaming and chattering of those who came to say goodbye to the one man he cares about. Anatole, even as a hot individual, and not Helene’s reckless and uncaring brother, is still someone worth fighting for.

Dolokhov is still trying to understand where these feelings are coming for, why he’s advising against everything he preached up until now, just because he simply can’t picture Anatole sliding his hand around Natasha’s waist, and keeping it there for long enough to get sick of the taste of her kisses. It’s an impulsive gesture: speaking up, extending one hand to rest it at the other man’s shoulder, in a gesture that he’d very much like to say: _stay_. His excuses are feeble, pathetic and he’s grateful when he’s not called on the despair in his reasoning, on the shaking of his fingers as he clutches a glass of alcohol.

“Teasing again?” is the conclusion Anatole comes to, when hundreds of other automatically come to his mind, most having nothing to do with laughs or jokes or nonsense. It’s the quick chattering, the contradicting gibberish that gives Anatole away to this one man who did everything for him up until now, and in this state, it’s easy enough to rile him up.

Dolokhov grabs his wrists, pins Anatole to the wall, and presses himself against him. His body is screaming, his mind is screaming, everything is just too much, all at once, and he immediately lets go as if burnt. He growls in frustration, lets his head fall on Anatole’s shoulder, breathes in the wintery smell pressed to his shirt.

“You’re not even close to being ready enough to do this.”

He’s written letters in his place for days; he’s read the replies with pained heart and heavy, ill intent. Anatole laughed happily at the promise they held, understanding nothing and yet wanting everything. Dolokhov has not ever refused him up until now; so he backs away to the opposite part of the room, finishes his drink.

Anatole’s eyes never leave his frame as he undresses to put on new, dazing clothes.

 

* * *

 

 

The last one Anatole says goodbye to, even as he knows he’ll still have him as a shadow for just a while longer, is Dolokhov. Just before he gets up in the troika, with his gloves forgotten on the desk in the study, a cold red nose and a blinding smile, Balaga politely turned with his back on them, Anatole grabs his friend by the collar of his coat and drags him closer.  There’s a whole minute when the distant laughter of a drunken man is faded to utter silence, where the world begins and ends in the look that passes between them. Dolokhov breathes in, thinks of the faraway Poland and how unreachable this man will be, and he kisses Anatole fully on the lips.

Anatole’s cold fingers rest at the skin of his neck, curl in the hair at the back of his head, leaving trails of burning feeling, while he deepens the kiss, turns it hungrier, more urgent. It takes all the willpower remained in the rational part of Dolokhov’s brain to part, to linger on their mingled breathes, on Anatole’s dazed and pleasured face, as his eyelids lower. It takes Balaga’s merry hummed tune to not go for another kiss.

Anatole takes Dolokhov’s hand, presses it to his chest. Under his fingers, Anatole’s heart is erratic, trapped in the fastest rhythm.

“Here, feel how it beats.”

Dolokhov is still unable to speak when, a moment later, Anatole drags him inside the troika, pressing kisses to his fingers, to his jaw, to his chin. It’s distracting and dazing; and yet it’s just a ploy for Anatole to distract himself from their destination.

What a pitiful, cruel way to do it. What a small-minded person Dolokhov is on his own, for accepting it so eagerly.

 

* * *

 

Betrayal tastes for Anatole like it tasted for Dolokhov to see the man he loves kiss him only to leave for another girl later during the same night. They both breathe in relief when the plot doesn’t succeed, and when Anatole faces Pierre and asks for more money than he might need, that’s because he’s not alone.

The next day, Anatole and Dolokhov leave for Petersburg.

 

* * *

 

 

It comes easy to be bitter and unhappy. It’s, of course, way easier than accepting his mistakes, than facing what can’t go away. Bitter and unhappy is easy. It’s not so easy with the two people he has grown to love and care for, with the two people he cannot stand to see suffer.

Pierre’s voice softens upon seeing a bare shoulder, a bare neck, a tear-stained face. Pierre’s tone soothes when bitterness and unhappiness is thrown back in his face. And just like that, he’s a changed man.

His wife will never understand. What some little understanding can do.

 

* * *

 

 

Andrey and Pierre fall back together to familiar, safer conversation, their friendship a pillar during the whirlwind that their lives seem to be. True to Pierre’s words, he never speaks of Countess Rostova ever again, but he does not forget the look that passed Andrey’s face in that one moment of sadness. Edging on madness.

So Pierre tries his best to make it go away. He offers a bed during nights when Andrey’s own house seems too looming, too hateful; a refuge of some sorts. They don’t speak on why they can undress in the same room, of why they sleep in the same bed, a wife somewhat forgotten between other men’s sheets. They read and discuss subjects afterward; if Andrey is feeling overly bold, he will start reading out loud, enjoying how Pierre forgets his drink aside, too focused on the words leaving his lips. It’s hard telling someone to stop when he’s not moving at all.

Some nights, Andrey cries. He can’t pinpoint the reasons exactly; sometimes he might blame it all on Natasha, sometimes he might mutter his father’s name with poison on his tongue. For Pierre is all the same: he holds his friend’s body in his arms, hushes him with tender words, foreign in his mouth, tries not to break down as well. If he is feeling overly bold and knows Andrey is already half asleep, he will make some comments, hope for things.

“There’s a new wrinkle on your forehead,” Pierre says, passing a thumb across the skin, biting his lips.

Andrey smiles, feeling better but refusing to move from the warmth of Pierre’s arms, enjoying the assurance that his friend wants more as badly as him. The hand he snakes, with a smile still plastered on his face, in the other man’s pants, works skillfully towards giving much needed release.

The flush Pierre gets from getting aroused is totally different from the one he gets when drinking too much, and Andrey relishes in the knowledge that he’s one of the few people who know this. He feels like his own body is on fire just from the sight and feel of Pierre’s cock, and the moans that man lets out leave him breathless.

It doesn’t take much to have him come, but it is Natasha’s name on Pierre’s lips. As Andrey licks off the cum on his fingers, he does his best not to bite his thumb until it bleeds. He still accept Pierre’s kisses, left all over his face, starved for affection as he is.

 

* * *

 

 

Natasha doesn’t receive a card to get well soon. Not even flowers or the simplest, polite inquiry. Instead, a few days after Pierre’s visit, his wife comes as well. Natasha’s still skinnier than expected, but wears her fancy dresses and full accessories anyway, walks around the house with the step Helene knows for sure she got from Anatole.

None say anything for a time, waiting on their tea and disappearance of the maid. The last one has been changed because of the elopement, and the new one has sharp eyes and even a sharper tongue. When Helene extends a hand across the table, Natasha, although weary, lets it rest on top of hers.

“I-,” Helene tries, and in her frustration she digs her nails in the girl’s skin and doesn’t even notice it. “You’re still the prettiest girl in Moscow.”

Natasha doesn’t smile, but squeezes back Helene’s hand, in some kind of understanding. Maybe under different circumstances, with other choices made, things would have been different. The country girl has evaporated in just a few days span, and instead was a woman with less to lose, and for this, more powerful. Helene would have been afraid, if not so impressed.

When she rises, Natasha doesn’t follow. It’s a game of mice and cat, and Helene can’t quite believe she is the pray ready to fall into a trap. The sofa the younger girl sits on lowers with Helene’s added weight, and she rests her knees on either side of Natasha’s body. Their chests have gone overboard with their breathing, touching as Helene closes the space. Natasha meets her half way, mouth open wide and her tongue sliding in her mouth, needy and curious at once.

Marya’s voice is sharp and can be heard from the other end of the house, so when the two young ladies stop their kissing, one of Helene’s hand is cupping Natasha’s breast through the thin material of her gown, one of Natasha’s own hand underneath Helene’s dress. They part slowly, taking their time to calm their ragged breathing, smooth their gowns. Marya finds them emerged in a pleasant conversation about the latest dress pattern.

They part with the knowledge that this happened once, never to be repeated. Helene wipes her mouth all the way home and still can’t get the taste of youth and possibility away from her.

 

* * *

 

 

Pierre exchanges letters with Natasha and sometimes sees her at the Opera. He’s nothing but honest each time they talk, either through written or spoken word, and if he sounds too much like he’s regretting all his decisions, well, he thinks as he glances back to the gorgeous lady that steals glances and attention like she does envy and gossip, he has every reason.

But he does feel better after they talked, like some weight have been lifted, like the world is a better place for having him acknowledge how he feels. He’d still go down to his knees in front of her, every single time he could. She doesn’t ask it of him, of anyone. She holds her head high, she smiles. For him, it’s even better than before.

He stopped watching the plays a long time ago; instead he studies her face and her reactions, picks out and memorizes only what left a mark upon her, only what truly impressed her, and during intermission he makes it his quest to ask her about it. Her eyes light up and her hands fly up in the sky as she goes into metaphorical and complicated explanation of some really basic details of the plays; but this is what it makes it so enjoyable for her. If the chattering is too loud, she’ll shift in her chair, closer to him, pressing her fingers to his arm with a force that wants to say: _I’m here_.

She’s here. So, he watches her.

 

* * *

 

 

Three months after Andrey comes back from the war, he asks Marya D. to allow him to come into her house. He starts off by passing pleasantries, apologizing for his family. His manners are what’s expected from a Prince and he surprises simply with his calm voice, steady gaze and unwavering resolution.

He asks nothing else of the Countess for now, simply relishes in her presence, in the familiarity of a person that he’s heard so much about from both his best friend and his best lover. He does not see Natasha on this visit and neither during the next five. If he’s disappointed, he does not show it to his hosts. Only once he catches a fugitive glance of Sonya, and her whole body snaps straight upon seeing him, her eyes full of remorse and something akin to understanding.

Some people simply can’t leave the ones that hurt them and they love.

Then, one afternoon, as he’s ready to set out from house Rostova, she shouts his name. It’s not lady-like and it’s much unexpected, but he learnt a long time ago to never doubt Natasha and her surprises. Her hair is let down, destroyed from the run to catch up with him, and she’s dressed in self-doubt and hope. Andrey isn’t quite sure which side he wants to indulge.

Her eyes fall to the ground. “Prince Bolkonsky… I beg for your forgiveness.”

“Yet not given,” he says, though he takes her hand, kisses it.

They write again. Between the fifteenth and the twenty-third, she addresses one letter to two men.

 

* * *

 

 

Pierre attends the first wedding in years not by his wife’s side, but by the groom and bride’s. It’d be stupid not to, knowing both Andrey and Natasha since childhood, loving them both so much it almost hurts to see them so happy. He likes it more when they look at him at the exact same time and share an overly enthusiastic smile, grab him by the arms to get him between them: support and lover and advisor and most trusted friend. Everything they need to work. Pierre knows it’s selfish to want to intrude between them so early into this convenient marriage, covering up traces of the nights they spend together, of the nights he gets with either part of the newlywed couple.

But he’s done being selfless and accepting what’s handed to him. He takes the path to a better life, by Natasha’s and Andrey’s side. They burn like comets.

 

* * *

 

 

Natasha cries that day at Sonya’s chest and proclaims her true, undying love to her cousin, to her best friend. Sonya does not believe her, but it’s nice to know her efforts weren’t for naught.

 

* * *

 

 

It starts with a book. It’s true, Pierre dropped it when Andrey got to his knees in front of him and took him in his mouth, but he feels like it was just right, taking in consideration the fact that Pierre was pumping his fingers inside Natasha. Still flushed when he went back home, they all forgot about the book.

It goes on with a shirt that Natasha put on one evening and refused to give back, with a belt Andrey liked better. His perfume comes next, for the nights when they both miss him. Their cook prepares for most times only Pierre’s favorite meals, even when he won’t stay for dinner, and there’s a bush of roses he planted right next to Andrey’s favorite bench.

Slowly, Natasha’s and Andrey’s house morphs into something that fits Pierre as well, and yet he still hesitates to call this place his. When he comes one day, Andrey kisses him in the doorway, smiling when Natasha blushes scarlet at the idea of having been seen. They spend a pleasant evening around the fireplace, drinking and talking, all three draped on the same sofa and barely fitting. When Natasha falls over, they laugh and laugh until their bellies hurt.

From the floor, licking her lips, she says: “You must come and live with us, Pierre.”

It’s jarring how it’s not even a request; just another necessary step in bringing them closer, in knitting them together. It’s scary how much he cares about pleasing these two people in his life, and only them. Andrey clasp him on the back like the deal is already on, and Natasha is bouncing, on her feet already, waiting to hug him.

They give him this: a place to belong and be himself.

 

* * *

 

If let to his own devices, Andrey will automatically think of the war, since it seems that his life has been shaped by this one event and by the part he had in it. He zooms off, forgets about his surroundings, laughs stupidly at some frivolous kisses he shared with honest and kind country men fighting by his side, which ended up dead and bloodied on a battlefield that refused to take him. He remembers the feel of constant rain above him and how bullets sound when passing right by your ear. These things seem to wear him down, to make him look older than he actually is.

With Natasha and Pierre though, the world tilts at an angle that makes it possible to almost see a brighter place. She speaks of the time he first courted her, stupid and hopeful and very much in love. Pierre speaks of an even younger Natasha, with nothing too different from the one that stands right here. Andrey speaks of how much he loves them here, right now, because the present is what matters.

Sometimes, they’d talk of that small period of time Natasha spent in Moscow without him. He shies away from uttering a word about that time; and it confuses him with how much confidence they can speak of their failure: Pierre’s drunken stupor, Natasha’s gullible heart. He wants to lay out his own misgivings, his fear of becoming too much like his lonely, crazy, old father; like his insatiable, poor, plain sister. He’ll give it more time.

There’s no reproach of _Andrey wasn’t here_ , because they learnt to understand that Andrey was where he was needed. And now that they need him too, he’s right here.

They give him this: finality, closure and hope.

 

* * *

 

 

Natasha is by herself a burning need, a desperate want. When she’s put in the position to choose, she wants everything she can get. Maybe that’s why she has not felt her standards met until one hand is tucked in a man’s arm, and the other hand in another’s. She’s not quite sure how she came to be in this position, when she realized that she doesn’t have to be satisfied with just one choice at all – and then took it all.

Shames gnaws at her though, it’s branded onto her lips and no matter how many times she will be kissed, the proof of her missteps is still to be found in a certain smile she gives to certain people. To certain almost-lovers, something-that-has-happened-once. She wonders if i-want-you-now is good enough, and if it isn’t turning into i-wanted-you-then. She wonders if teamed, these two men will have what it takes to keep her. A marriage vow hasn’t stopped too many before, either.

But she pushes and they push back harder, she asks and they just do. She complains and nothing bothers her anymore the next minute, she says _I love you_ and they don’t really say it back, and this is how she knows it’ll last.

There’s Andrey buried deep inside her and her mouth is wrapped around Pierre, and her body pulses on every inch of skin and for the first time she’s afraid to ask for more because she’s not sure she can take it. She’s ready to snap, on the edge and filled to bursting, and when she comes, it’s like coming back from the sky.

“I’m not worth it,” Natasha yawns, satisfied but remorseful anyway.

“Stop,” Andrey says on one side, kissing her shoulder, her neck, her chest. “Stop,” Pierre says on the other, kissing her toe, her knee, her hip. “Stop,” they say together, between each kiss.

 

* * *

 

 

_Dear Helene,_

A letter from Anatole Kuragin addressed to his sister says,

_I might finally be in love. I don’t wish the burdens, the fears and the ecstasy that come with it upon anyone; but you might splendidly learn to enjoy them. I wish you’d find your own contentment already, sister._

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe I wrote all this, like I did, and still be proud. Guilty of screaming at the friends who dragged me into the fandom about every possible relationship in this musical. And I also can't believe how much I love all the characters.
> 
> Talk to me on [tumblr](http://teavious.tumblr.com/)!


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